Hello all. I am new to everything. I have studied meditation on my own without much discipline in the past from which I had achieved fairly good results. I avoided Buddhism for a long time for several reasons: One, I thought that it was going to be much more religious than it actually is, two, I was still trapped in my anger mode, and Buddha's teachings made me even more angry when I read them mostly because I was condemning myself and avoiding the truth, and three, I thought that I had achieved all that there was on my own. Now that I have started reading Wings to Awakening, I realise that I was wrong on all three accounts. Since reading Wings to Awakening, I have found a solid state of peace. I am no longer angry, frustrated, or confused. I am full of happiness. I am no longer sad or depressed. I can concentrate like never before, and most of all, I treat everyone as a friend. I no longer have enemies. I do have many questions being so new. I thank you ahead of time for your patience and kindness. I can feel your warmth already. Peace and happiness to all.

The flyingOx, no longer bound and mired in the clay.

One is encouraged to seek the truth, but be warned if you ever find it, you will be treated as blasphemous.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion … ...He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.John Stuart Mill

Hi FlyingOxWelcome to Dhamma Wheel.I hope you find here among us some small measure of inspiration and friendly companionship.Metta

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725